Thanks to a struggling housing market and commissions that have been cut nearly in half since 2005, a number of realtors are dropping out of the ranks, reported the National Association of Realtors (NAR) this past weekend. Lawrence Yun, chief economist for NAR, estimates that the “gross commission total has plunged 50 percent in the last five years” and home Read full article »
Tag archives for Decline
Number of Realtors Slips in 2010
category: Real Estate News
Renters Spend More on Housing than Homeowners
While you have probably heard the saying that it costs more to own than to rent, the numbers from the 2009 Census dispute this commonly accepted axiom. In fact, according to USA Today, “more renters found housing unaffordable” than homeowners, who enjoyed relatively “stable” housing affordability. This analysis comes as a result of census statistics that indicate that more than Read full article »
category: Personal Finance Tips, Real Estate News
tags: 1 Million, Axiom, Census Dispute, Census Information, Census Statistics, Commercial Sector, Decline, Fence, Harvard, Home Foreclosures, Homeownership, Household Income, Housing Affordability, Housing Costs, Housing Studies, National Economy, Poor Job, Real Estate Investors, Research Analyst, Usa Today
Foreclosure “Hot Spots” Locked into Low Rankings Thanks to Lousy, Long-Term Records
New information released by RealtyTrac indicates that while their numbers still stink, America’s “hot spots” for foreclosures are actually on the mend. However, their long-term negative growth has locked their real estate markets into poor rankings at the bottom of the pile. While foreclosure filings are still climbing in places like Baltimore (up 141 percent from last year), Salt Lake City Read full article »
category: Real Estate News
Real Estate & Financial News – What It REALLY Means
I was recently checking my twitter account when I discovered a really interesting article called "The Hunt For Real Recovery". This article focused on a lot of the financial and government reports we hear about each week, and whether those reports tend to reflect the past or predict the future. Being an eternal optimist, I tend to believe there is a huge Read full article »
category: Main Content, Real Estate News
tags: Aggregate, Arenas, Business Conditions, Contraction, Credit Availability, Decline, Disarray, Divergence, Economic Viewpoint, Eternal Optimist, Financial News, Government Reports, Gross Domestic Product, Gut Feelings, Housing Starts Data, Job Losses, National Federation Of Independent Businesses, Personal Income, Reo, Second Quarter
The Politics of Real Estate
Few industries are as profoundly impacted by the political machinations in Washington as the real estate industry. Whether it's old legislation like Jimmy Carter's Community Reinvestment Act or Barack Obama's massive mortgage bailouts, the U.S. political machine has a huge impact (usually bad) on the business of real estate.
Ideally, we could ignore politics. But here at the Bryan Ellis Real Estate Letter, we insist on seeing the world with clarity - including the reality of Washington's aggressive involvement in every facet of our business, from mortgage lending to real estate sales license; from loan modification regulations to appraisal requirements... every piece of our business is profoundly impacted by politics. So rather than stick our heads in the sand and ignore reality, readers of the Bryan Ellis Real Estate Letter choose to be informed and prepared.
Mortgage Industry News
Few things change more rapidly than the mortgage market, and with the increasing dominance of GSE's Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac over the mortgage business, it's more important than ever to keep up. Here are a few recent mortgage news updates:
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Mortgage News
- HAMP Success Tally Slowly Growing
- Western States Working Through Foreclosure Backlog Quicker than Eastern
- Biggest Down Payments in the Country Found in New Jersey
- President Bypasses Congress, Appoints Director of the Consumer Protection Bureau
- Federal Reserve Recommends Expanding GSEs to Turn Housing Market Around
- Mortgage Rates Likely to Remain Low for a While Longer
- Top Former FDIC, Wells Fargo Execs Say Fannie and Freddie Must Go
- FHA Continues to Extend Anti-Flipping Waiver
- More Homeowners Using Delaying Tactics to Slow Down Foreclosures
- Now that It’s Passed: The True Cost of the Payroll Tax Cut
About Bryan Ellis
Bryan Ellis is an Atlanta-based real estate analyst and publisher of the widely read newsletter "The Bryan Ellis Real Estate Letter". With over 200,000 subscribers - including real estate investors, agents, brokers, appraisers and other real estate professionals - the Bryan Ellis Real Estate Letter is among America's largest sources of unbiased coverage of politics and public policy for the real estate industry.
Bryan Ellis serves as editor in chief for the Bryan Ellis Real Estate Letter and is assisted by an extraordinary staff of writers, researchers and editors who are each real estate experts in their own right and who assure that the news we report is well researched, factual, and highly relevant to today's real estate industry.
Bryan is very happily married and has two wonderful daughters. He makes his home in the suburbs of Atlanta, Georgia. You can contact the team at the Bryan Ellis Real Estate Letter here.